Carolyn Fern, Dedicated Healer (multiplayer only)

This is a purely horror-heal version of Carolyn Fern. It requires being in a party with a dedicated damage dealer and a dedicated clue-getter (or a mystic who handles both of those plus other support characters).

To mod into a dedicated seeker-style deck (she's pretty good at this):

• Add 2x Fingerprint Kit (instead of Inspiring Presence)
• Add 2x Hawk-Eye Folding Camera (instead of Old Book of Lore).
• Add 2x Dr. Milan Christopher (instead of Emergency Aid).
• Add 2x Deduction (instead of Prophesy).
• Add 1x Logical Reasoning (instead of Medical Texts).
• Add 1x Connect the Dots (instead of 1x No Stone Unturned).

I don't ever recommend Carolyn as a dedicated damage-dealer. However, if you're playing in a group where you think you're more likely to end up having to deal with threats on your own, I recommend swapping 2x Vicious Blow instead of Prophesy or Deduction.

Most controversial decision (imo): Including Foolishness and To Fight the Black Wind. Foolishness is an okay signature card at best, and To Fight the Black Wind is one of the absolute worst weaknesses in the game. However, I've found in multiple campaigns that Carolyn really needs skill boosts (mathematically, she's got the worst basic stat line in the game for anyone without a built-in character stat boost), and Foolishness plus 2x Well Prepared (which is not unique and is 100% worth its XP cost & deck slots) is an excellent solution for that.

With a healed Foolishness, double Well-Prepared is a +5 to any single check per turn or a +3 to two separate checks. Even before Foolishness is healed, as long as he's on the board, one Well-Prepared functions to improve any Carolyn check by 2. Even if she hasn't seen Foolishness, Hypnotic Therapy is a +2 to any or check, or a +1 to any other check.

Other explanations:

• Meat Cleaver: Every once in awhile, you just have to be able to hit something. This helps Carolyn do that, and the horror can go straight onto Peter, turning it into money. If you play Murder at the Excelsior Hotel, the Bloodstained Dagger is great for Carolyn and can be a replacement for one of the Meat Cleavers.
• Emergency Aid / Medical Texts: If she's acting as a dedicated healer, she'll want some damage heal as well as sanity heal. These are my first cuts if she needs to be a dedicated seeker, though.
• Liquid Courage / Thermos: If you're playing with low- investigators, Liquid Courage is an easy cut. However, with reasonable and Hypnotic Therapy, this can potentially heal more horror than Clarity of Mind for cheaper (but is riskier). Thermos is good especially late in a campaign and can be flexible as necessary, but is pretty expensive to put down for small-ish gain. Easy inclusion to start, but likely to get cut long-term.
• Peter Sylvestre: Many Carolyn decks don't actually include Sylvestre, thinking that she has better means of horror healing. I think that's flatly faulty, honestly. Peter's not horror-heal, he's ECONOMY. Anything that would give Carolyn horror is immediately translated into cash monies by Sylvester, without actions, without effort, without expense, without using charges or supplies that are limited. It frees her to use her horror heal on everyone besides herself while also often turning her into a pretty reliable Jenny Barnes! Especially in conjunction with cards that give money or discounts in exchange for horror (The Black Book in particular is INSANE in Carolyn with Peter), Carolyn can quickly become the best economy character in the game (besides maybe Preston Fairmont, whom I haven't played). That's super useful, since a LOT of the cards that she wants to play are expensive, and I personally hate being frustrated by a lack of money to play them.
• Forbidden Knowledge: With Peter Sylvestre, this is an obvious inclusion (though one I actually missed the first time through). On any turn where there's not yet horror on Peter, she can trigger it right at the end of her turn, immediately generating two resources at no cost. It helps fill in the gaps on any turn where Peter isn't going to heal himself 'cause there's nothing to heal and boosts her economy significantly in the process. A copy of Forbidden Knowledge in this deck is a drip Emergency Cache that produces 8 resources instead of 3.

Upgrades (Cheap & Useful):

• 2x Ever Vigilant: Absolute first purchase. Carolyn's got a lot of setup to be good. Quickly drop her expensive assets for cheap.
• 2x Pathfinder: Almost all of Carolyn Fern's tricks require being at the right location. Pathfinder helps her get there.
• 2x Well Prepared: See explanation re: Foolishness.

Upgrades (Expensive but Critical):

• 1x Stick to the Plan: As soon as you can make this purchase, do so. Attach "I've got a plan!", Dynamite Blast, and Ever Vigilant to it and you'll never be stuck early game dropping things slowly or needing that one damage card at just the right time. Emergency Cache can replace either Dynamite Blast or "I've got a plan!" if you're extra worried about finding your money.
• 2x Clarity of Mind and First Aid: Make your horror heal better. This really helps. One Clarity of Mind charge + Hypnotic Therapy clears Foolishness.
• 2x Peter Sylvestre: See earlier explanation. Same but even more flexible.
• 1x Charisma (2x if you're playing a seeker-style deck): You really, really want both Peter Sylvestre and Foolishness on the table at once, plus Dr. Milan Christopher if you want clues.

Upgrades (Expensive & Eventually Nice):

• 2x Ancient Stone > 2x Ancient Stone
• 1x Keen Eye
• 1x or 2x Logical Reasoning
• 2x Deny Existence
• 2x Key of Ys

Especially good expansion cards for Carolyn Fern:

• The Black Book from The Secret Name in the Circle Undone campaign. This combo with Peter Sylvestre might be the most broken thing I've ever played. You will never, ever, ever run out of money.
• The Bloodstained Dagger from Murder at the Excelsior Hotel. Not critical, but a nice bonus way for Carolyn to actually occasionally hit something.